What 1,000+ Students Shared About Campus Technology
Somewhere on campus, a first-year student tries to register for classes. She toggles between a student portal, the course catalog, the financial aid system, and the registrar’s site, piecing together whether she can afford the courses she needs and if they’ll fit her schedule. Every minute she spends clicking around adds a little more pressure, and with registration closing soon, she’s stressed, exasperated and questioning whether she made the right choice in enrolling at all.
She’s far from alone.
Pathify’s 2025 Student Digital Experience Survey gathered insights from over 1,000 U.S. college and university students and found nearly half of students missed a critical deadline — an assignment, a payment, a registration window — simply because they didn’t know it was due.
In other words, the very systems designed to support students often unintentionally work against them. This is what makes this situation so important — the solution isn’t mysterious or futuristic. It’s clear, practical and very much within reach.
The Experience Gap
I’m not the first to point out how today’s students expect technology that just works. They’re accustomed to apps remembering their preferences and interfaces so intuitive they don’t need instructions or tutorials. Then, they arrive on campus only to navigate a labyrinth of platforms, logins and workflows that test their patience and will to persist.
Data backs up this disconnect: More than half of surveyed students (59%) say their institution’s digital experience falls short of the technology they use in the rest of their lives — and they believe it shouldbe better. Only 21% feel their campus tech meets the standard. This isn’t entitlement — it’s students recognizing dysfunction and being honest (and polite) enough to point it out.
The Real Cost of Frustration and Inconvenience
Let’s return to our first-year student. Our survey found 60% of students spend more than five minutes searching for basic information like their course schedule or financial aid status. Roughly a quarter spend 10 minutes or more. Two-thirds (66%) “sometimes,” “frequently,” or “very frequently” click through multiple links or platforms just to complete a simple task. Inconvenience accumulates quickly — students burn precious time hunting down information that should be front and center, not buried under clicks.
And then consider the emotional toll. Ask students how they feel about their school’s digital systems, and nearly 70% report feeling frustrated at least “sometimes.” For 40%, frustration happens regularly. When technology creates barriers, it’s harder for students to succeed — and that technology may undermine an institution’s own mission.
Those Who Need the Most Support Face the Most Friction
Here’s where the experience gap becomes fundamentally uneven. First-year students — still learning how college works while juggling new academic demands — are more likely than upperclassmen to feel “very frequent” frustration with campus technology. First-generation students are less likely than their peers to report a “very positive” impact from their school’s digital experience, demonstrating how much harder navigating college becomes without built-in institutional knowledge.
For any student finding their footing in a completely new environment, technology should steady the path — not complicate it.
And those at public institutions — which often serve larger, more diverse and more economically varied populations — are less likely than their private school peers to rate their digital platform’s usability as “excellent.” Complexity may be expected in large public systems, but it shouldn’t be the student’s burden. Students are signaling the experience can (and must) improve.
Altogether, these disparities surface a simple point — poor digital experiences don’t affect students equally. The friction isn’t random — it impacts the students that institutions most want to support. And when that inequity goes unaddressed, it quietly pushes certain students further from the finish line.
The Importance of Community and Connection
We know belonging contributes to student success1. Students who feel more connected persist at higher rates, engage more deeply with learning and graduate with stronger ties. Digital experiences must enable and accelerate a sense of belonging.
Yet only one-third of students use institution-provided technology to find clubs and groups. The rest rely on word of mouth, flyers, chance encounters, or unregulated social media. A resounding 65% wish their institution made it easier to discover campus organizations — that’s nearly two-thirds of students saying they want to get more involved but can’t figure out how. The communication gap appears even more stark — barely a quarter of students use their school’s community app to connect with peers, while 64% wish their institution would make peer-to-peer communication easier.
Here’s what the data tells us: students want to connect. They want to get involved, and they want to feel like they’re part of a community… their current technology just isn’t helping them do it.
How Campus Tech Shapes Reputation
Students don’t keep their frustrations to themselves. More than half of students (54%) say they’re willing to share their institution’s digital experience with prospective students — even if it’s not entirely positive. In a world where social media and peer recommendations shape most consumer decisions, every student’s experience becomes part of the story prospective students hear.
The enrollment implications also run deep. Thirty-two percent of current students report if they were choosing their college based only on digital systems, they would rethink their decision. In other words, nearly 1 in 3 students regret their enrollment when they consider the technology you’ve given them. For institutions facing enrollment pressures, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity2. Digital experience forms your institutional value proposition. Students evaluate you on it, and it offers a significant, controllable lever for making a real impact.
One Platform, Better Outcomes
Here’s the encouraging part: Students told us exactly what they want. When asked how they prefer to access student services, 75% of students chose “through a single, centralized platform” over separate tools — a 3:1 preference for a consolidated experience.
Even more compelling, 95% of students say they’re “somewhat” or “very” likely to use a single digital platform if their institution offered one. This isn’t risky change management.
Students welcome the chance to embrace a one-stop shop.
And institutions making this shift see meaningful results. Students engaging with unified Campus Experience Platforms like Pathify are:
- More than 3x as likely to only use 1 or 2 platforms to manage their college experience
- 2x less likely to experience stress from digital systems
- 3x more likely to rate their digital hub’s usability as “good” or “excellent”
- Nearly 2x as likely to share their experience with others
These outcomes translate directly into the metrics institutions care about: satisfaction, persistence, success, and reputation.
Digital Campus Experiences Matter
The data makes one thing clear — how institutions handle digital experiences matters. The institutions acting now build advantages that compound over time. The question isn’t whether fragmented digital experiences create problems. They do — the data proves it. The real question becomes whether your institution will step forward to solve it.
Students show remarkable forgiveness when they see genuine improvement. And the return on getting it right extends far beyond your tech stack — it touches everything your institution aims to accomplish.
About the Author
As Pathify’s Head of Alliances, Shana Holman partners with university leadership teams and Pathify’s customer advisory board to tackle complex challenges facing higher education. With extensive experience in higher ed and strategic partnerships, she brings practical insights on how universities can use integrated technology to create more connected campus experiences — while getting value out of the tech they already own. Shana calls Denver, Colorado, home, where she spends as much time as possible in the mountains with her family and two yellow Labradors. She’s also a parent to two college students, giving her a true front-row seat on whether campus tech actually delivers on its promises.
About the Survey
The 2025 Pathify Student Digital Experience Survey was conducted in partnership with Thrive Analytics and surveyed 1,000+ U.S. college students aged 17-24 across public and private four-year institutions. For full survey results, visit: https://pathify.com/lp/2025-student-digital-experience-survey/
Sources
1 “How Student Experience and Belonging Interventions Can Support Strong Post-Secondary Outcomes” Institute for Higher Education Policy, August 2024, https://www.ihep.org/publication/student-experience-and-belonging-strong-outcomes/
2 “Branding is a Vibe — and Your (Clunky) Digital Experience Might Be Ruining It” Collegium Magazine, Spring 2025, https://pathify.com/blog/branding-is-a-vibe-and-your-clunky-digital-experience-might-be-ruining-it/